KennethT

This is what I get - I get them at my local HMart... https://www.sayweee.com/en/product/Havista-Shanxi-Planed-Fresh-Noodles/11183?sales_org_id=16&region_id=000007&campaign_id=MOFU_e-GLOBAL_t-Shopping_l-EN_r-Broad_src-GADS_o-dweb&utm_source=gads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=MOFU_e-GLOBAL_t-Shopping_l-EN_r-Broad_src-GADS_o-dweb&cam_id=20034217573&utm_adgroup=149235472500&keyword=&ftu=popupall&ftuflags=48&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqs6lBhCxARIsAG8YcDgujUbpZ56ZL7ap5PQZqaVohAn8DYj9XsZq732dIaKe_-FoziERMesaAtrhEALw_wcB

First time back in the kitchen in a long while... My wife is finally getting ready for some real food again, so I thought a good intro is Singapore style Bak Kut Teh with lots of slow cooked garlic and Sumatran black pepper, and Argentinian red shrimp (with knife peeled noodles).

What are the rice paddy fish like? It's hard to tell from the photo - how big are they? Seems about 3-4" long. I assume you eat the heads as well?

I picked the wrong place to vacation this year!!!

Yeah, I understand and have great respect for what the people at CBP do. I didn't see any CBP dogs on this trip, but I have definitely seen them in the past. Many years ago, coming home from Thailand, they were there, and their handlers were mainly taking them towards a lot of the older Thai ladies - Aunties and Grandmas who just happen to be bringing home 2 suitcases full of chillies and who knows what else! The dog got excited near me because I had a bag of cashews in my carry-on that I actually had brought from home as an emergency snack either for the plane or hotel room (I'd hate to see their carbon footprint!!!) but the agent took one look at them and moved on. Even if I had brought them from Thailand, nuts that have been roasted are allowable. From what I gather, right now there are several viruses worldwide that could be hiding in chilli and tomato plants - which is why they're temporarily not allowing any plant parts in without certs or hard-core inspection at a USDA location (not just a window at the airport).

whoops... sorry - I completely neglected to follow through about this... mostly because it was a non-event. I had done a LOT of research prior to the trip as to what I could and what I could not bring back. In addition to the kencur (a type of ginger, which is allowed in hand luggage without permit), I had wanted to bring back some fresh chillis since the ones in Indonesia are different from most everywhere else I've seen. However, all parts of the chilli (fruit, seeds, plants) are currently prohibited to bring back under any circumstances. I may have been able to get a permit to ship a plant back (not carry in luggage) but it would require a phytosanitary certificate which is hard to come by and can be expensive. Same for seeds. Or, I could ship non-certified plants or plant parts to my local USDA where they would be inspected for pests/diseases and then finally shipped to me at home but that required a LOT of paperwork, I'd have to find a place to ship them to the US while in Indonesia, and there's a strong possibility it could be rejected after all that. Theoretically, I'd have to declare my kencur that I brought back in my hand luggage when going through immigration and then I'd have to visit the USDA window for them to inspect it for dirt/pests. My wife and I both have Global Entry (which saves a LOT of time at US immigration) and, theoretically, the kiosk you use when entering should ask you a bunch of questions about declaring stuff. I don't know if the kiosks weren't working right or whatever - it recognized me as soon as I stepped up to the machine (it uses facial recognition) but didn't ask any questions whatsoever, and there are no longer any paper declaration forms that there used to be years ago (I asked). There also was no USDA window, office or anything else I could find. After the kiosk, there was a CBP (customs and border protection) agent who just asked my name and when he saw it on the list, just waved me through no questions asked. To be honest, there was a relatively long line and it seemed like he just wanted to get everyone through ASAP. After that, there were no other customs agents around to even ask questions of and the hallway just dumped me into baggage claim and I didn't see any customs agents after leaving that area either. About a year ago, I was a little addicted to watching a show that showed the CBP at work detecting and catching people bringing in illegal drugs, money, plants, you name it. They are really good at it, but it seemed like they targeted flights coming from specific countries or if they had received a tip that there was a person of interest on a certain flight. In my case, arriving from Singapore where basically everything is illegal and punishable by death, they didn't consider that a high priority for inspection. Wow! That was a really long answer to part of your question.... sorry for my rambling. I definitely have a habit of going into WAY too much detail. In any case, I got my kencur home with no problems. Even if I had visited a USDA office, I was confident that it would pass inspection since I thoroughly washed each piece individually to make sure all traces of soil and pests were gone (there were no pests and almost no soil to begin with). I then put all of the pieces on a white towel which I shook around which should have made any remaining bugs visible. I had come prepared with ziplock freezer bags and paper towels to line them, and put my washed and dried pieces in the bag. When I got home, I put most of the pieces in the freezer - like galangal, kencur freezes fine - the only thing that changes is the texture but it gets ground up into a spice paste anyway so that doesn't matter. A couple of the pieces were rooting already, so I stuck them in some coco coir with a very weak hydroponic solution and have it under lights in my apartment. I'm hoping I'll get some new roots/shoots, then I'll have a never ending (although supposedly very slow growing) supply!

These were some amazing beef rollups at a Yunnanese restaurant in Beijing.... the second photo down:

Oh, I recognize what ginger can do.... but @liuzhou and I have similar feelings on TCM, so that comment was more of a joke than anything else.

No, no doubt. I wasn't sure what it was when I had it but I was also a bit distracted as I was concerned for my wife so not really paying attention. I didn't bother translating the sign in front of the chafing dish until recently, so at the time I didn't know if it was a type of water spinach or something else. It had the word "air" in the name, which means water, so I figured it either grew in water or had water in the name.

Dinner that night... Some type of corn soup I think this was beef rendang - a bit on the sweet side for me, but otherwise, really well done. Nicely caramelized which is a hallmark of a good rendang. I thin this was eggplant in some kind of curry. It was tasty regardless of what it was! The next morning we were out the door early to meet our guide for the 6:30AM tour of the reserve. Our guide specialized in finding the black macaques while another guide we met up with specialized in finding birds, however both knew how to find just about everything that lived there. It turned out that the guides are also paid by a researcher from a university in NY (he never told me which university) to track the animals every day, keep tabs on them and take notes. The researcher would come every few months to study the animals further. We saw a lot of these macaques. Unlike the ones in Bali, these ones are not aggressive at all and barely acknowledged us which I was happy about. We spent quite a bit of time following a few different families around as they went about their morning. We also stumbled upon where a pair of owls roost. In addition to specializing in finding and observing the macaques, our guide also specialized in taking cell phone photos through a pair of binoculars! Kingfisher This is a bear cuscus - a marsupial who was at the top of this ridiculously tall tree. You could barely see him without the binoculars. We got back to the hotel probably around 10:30 and then they made us breakfast after we cleaned ourselves up. Watermelon and awesome pineapple I think the muffins on the right were banana muffins with chocolate chips. We left to return to Manado after breakfast. It's around this time that my wife's intestinal distress was intensifying (it actually started in the middle of our tour that morning but she was so excited, she didn't want to leave) and she started feeling exhausted. So when we got back to Manado, she just crashed in bed and I cleaned all of my kencur. All washed and ready to bring home! Since neither of us were feeling that great, we skipped lunch. My wife basically stayed in bed the rest of the day/night - she wound up developing the same fever that I had back on the island and was feeling really lousy. The next morning was time to get and up pack to go home. She was still feeling lousy but at least her fever seemed to have gone away and she was able to keep her intestinal distress under control. Breakfast: They called this ayam panggang kecap which is translated as soy sauce chicken. According to some recipes that I could find (all in Bahasa), the chicken is first stewed in a spice paste liquid, then once cooked, brushed with soy sauce and grilled. I don't think this chicken had ever seen a grill, but it was tasty nonetheless. The greens were called stir fried watercress and was really good. Still slightly crunchy even while sitting in the buffet chafing dish for a while. After breakfast, we finished packing and headed to the airport. After an uneventful flight back to Singapore, we had about a 7 hour layover where we had originally planned to go to the Jewel at the airport (but is not in the transit area so you have to go through immigration) and see their indoor forest which we had missed last time and then go to Violet Oon's restaurant there. Violet Oon is like the Lydia Bastianich of Peranakan food in Singapore and I was really curious to try her version of ayam buah keluak. But my wife was really feeling like crap so we just wound up going to a pay-per-use lounge where we could find some seats away from everyone else and she could just rest/sleep. They had quite a few food options but I only took a photo of 1 of the things I had: Noodle soup with fish ball - quite tasty. So, that't it! All in all, a decent trip somewhat hampered by illness but overall, still totally worthwhile.

The next day was another transit day. We're off to the eastern side of the peninsula that has the Tangkoko Nature Reserve, home to a few endemic animals like tarsiers and black macaques. But first, breakfast at the hotel: Black pepper chicken and some kind of fried vegetable fritter Mee goreng more kue When we arrived at the new hotel (another very small hotel with only maybe 5 or 6 rooms) we were met by the woman I had been corresponding with months before. Again, there is literally nowhere around to get something to eat other than at the hotel, so all meals are included in the room rate. The hotel is located right at the edge of the Nature Reserve. The only other things in the area are a couple of homestays for other people who wanted to see the reserve. So, she wanted to know what types of food we liked so that they could have everything ready for us. As always, I said that we had wanted local food as much as possible. I also asked her if there were any markets in the area that had kencur, if it was used in the local cooking. She verified that it was used, and when we arrived she presented me with over a pound of it that she picked up on her own time!!!! How sweet is that?!? Once we got back to Manado, I made sure to wash it thoroughly so that I wouldn't have any problems importing it once we got home. One piece of kencur Anyway, we got there at lunch time, so we stuck our bags in our room and then went to lunch. Looking out over the Nature Reserve from the restaurant Corn fritter, with chilli sauce and ketchup Chicken curry At some point in our email exchange I had mentioned that kang kong (water spinach) was my favorite vegetable, so here it is! It is around this time that while I'm at maybe 85% now, my wife is starting to feel her own intestinal problems. But she was a real trooper and persevered! Our first tour in the nature preserve was that evening, to see the nocturnal tarsiers. After walking for maybe a half hour, our guide took us to this tree, which is one of the homes for the tarsiers: And then we saw them!!! They are so interesting looking - and they're a marsupial. They're the world's smallest primate. We also saw a blue tarantula: And a black tarantula: After thoroughly checking each other for bugs when we got back to the room, we went for dinner.....

This doesn't engender much confidence!!!

I should have taken a photo of the Chinese restaurant menu. It was entertaining to see the names of Chinese dishes transcribed into Bahasa!

Thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying. Oh yes, there are tons of different sambal - many of which are only used regionally. Although one thing in common with practically all of them is that they're fried. I have the same jar of sambal oelek, but I dont' consider it Indonesian - first, it's not fried - it's really just crushed chillies and maybe some salt/acid (I don't know if the acid is just something to keep the color bright and doesn't have a flavor purpose). It's funny about the ripe papaya - we both think that it reminds us of sweat. Go figure. But I agree that adding some lime makes a big difference. Even better is the typical South Vietnamese treatment - making a paste out of lime juice, salt and chilli and dipping into that! That'll make anything taste good! The ginger tea did work wonders on my stomach, although I did wonder how much was the ginger and how much was the sugar I added to it....

I just realized, we went into a restaurant in Tomohon before the market visit. I didn't bother taking any photos since all we got were a couple of lime juice drinks and our guide wanted a coffee. Oddly enough, it was some kind of Chinese restaurant (run by Indonesians). The menu was all Bahasa.

I can't really say as we didn't go into any restaurants on this trip. Most of the places we saw were roadside places where the "menu" was basically written on a piece of cardboard and hung on the outside wall of the place facing the road. Those were all in Bahasa. The only English I saw anywhere was at the hotel. When we were in Yogyakarta, there was no English anywhere in any of the restaurants we went to (and there were a lot on that trip) - again, English only in the hotel. Every place we went to in Bali, whether it be in the south near the beaches and airport or Ubud in the center, had English menus - but Bali gets a ton of western tourists. This trip and Yogyakarta see very little western tourists but lots of domestic tourists.

Next stop was the main market in the village of Tomohon. Tomohon is a much larger village than the previous ones and is quite charming - it's considered the capital of the Minahasa highland region. Driving through it, I was a little jealous that we didn't stay there instead of Manado! Unfortunately, since the Kali waterfall took much longer than expected, our guide started racing a bit. Even though we had told him that if we run out of time, we can just see fewer waterfalls, he was very proud of his region and insisted that he wanted to show us everything. So we raced through the market. On the outer perimeter of the market were many fruit vendors selling mangoes and mangosteen! I was dying to stop and kept trying to tell him, but nope... no time - the purpose of the market trip is to see the "exotic meat" section which is quite famous. As I wrote previously, the Minahasa highland people have traditionally eaten practically anything they could get - dog, monkey, bats, python snakes, etc. Personally, while I understand that different cultures have different tastes, etc., it wasn't a huge priority of mine to gawk at the exotic meats. I would have much rather spent a little less time in that section and more actually picking up some fruit and looking through the rest of the market. Oh well.... We were able to get some shots on the fly... Some leafy greens and around there I swear I saw kencur, which I had been looking to bring home. More greens and cinnamon on the left. A vendor selling cakes - on the left are baked and the right are fried. I don't know about the baked ones (we were walking and talking fast) but she was frying the ones on the right at the market. We bought one of each. Very tasty, although I have little idea of what it was. I definitely tasted palm sugar and cinnamon. I would love to have them again or have talked more with the vendor. Green tomatoes, chillies, shallots, onions, potatoes Some exotic meats.... in the middle are two types of bats. When we got to this section, our guide was disappointed that many of the vendors weren't there - he said there are tons of vendors selling various stuff on Saturdays. And here is probably why every place we have been cooks the crap out of all the fish: Fish, fish, everywhere and not a cube of ice. After racing through the market, I started getting a bit more intestinal distress. But no time for that, back to the car! As we were headed out of Tomohon, our guide stopped and picked up a couple Chinese style buns filled with pork. My wife said the chilli sauce made a big difference, but my stomach definitely was not up for it at the moment. The next couple of waterfalls were really disappointing. We'd get halfway down the trail only to find the result of some kind of mudslide, the rest being completely impassable. It was frustrating to be able to hear it but not go the extra few hundred yards to turn the corner to see it. More moss and wet leaf covered stairs Look at this giant bamboo! Oh and it had also started raining..... This is the end of the line. You could hear teh waterfall off to our right. By the way, without those handrails, we never would have gotten that far!!!! Back up the trail to the car to go to the next waterfall.... or not.... There's a trail under there somewhere!!!! We should have brought a machete. Neither my wife nor I even bothered taking any photos of the next one. For this, the waterfall and trail to it was basically in some guy's backyard and in order to get to see it, you need to rent him as a guide. I should have been wary since our guide was lauding him as the town superhero - he white water rafts, goes hang-gliding and parachute jumps, etc. We are not THAT athletic, contrary to what it may look like above. So when he tells us that there is a small stream crossing to get to the trail to the waterfall, I should have stopped us right there. Surely, his idea of a small stream crossing would not be the same as mine. It wasn't. I thought it was going to be a few inches of water, and mostly lots of rocks you can walk on. It was a fast moving stream that was about knee deep with a few slippery rocks spread around. We originally attempted it - we were able to cross the first section (I also didn't realize that this was only the FIRST "crossing") relatively unscathed. I made it across with my heart beating out of my chest as I almost slipped on those damn rocks 5 times and broke my neck. My wife's foot slipped off of one rock and she wound up knee deep with her hiking shoes on midway through the crossing. At that point, I should have insisted that we just turn around and head back, but our guide and our superman guide both insisted that it wasn't much further. So when we turned the corner and I saw that we'd basically have to wade in the quickly moving river up to our crotches I said I wasn't going any further. Many years ago I took a nasty fall walking in a similar situation in upstate NY (Ithaca is Gorges!!). I almost broke my neck when I was 18... there's no way I'd risk it 30 years later! So I categorically refused to go any further, but atypically, my wife was more adventurous than me, considering she was already wet, she said she'd continue on. So I sat down on a slippery rock to wait for them, confident that she'd be safe having both guides there. After they had been gone about 10 minutes, I started having visions of them carrying her back after she twisted an ankle (at the very least). Luckily, nothing like that happened, but when they did come back I was told they never even made it to the waterfalls because it just became too much and my wife refused to go any further. Once we got back to the car I was really feeling like crap so I told our guide I just wanted to go back to the hotel. My wife's shoes were dripping wet and my intestinal distress was intensifying. He understood but was a bit sad. As we were driving back, I spotted a small waterfall off the side of the road, so we stopped for a minute. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was around 7:30 PM and pitch dark. There was a ton of traffic getting back into Manado. Like completely standstill. By the time we got back, we were exhausted and annoyed. I started my wife's shoes in the process of drying out (yay! the room had a hair dryer!) and we stayed in the hotel for dinner. My stomach wasn't doing so great but I thought I could handle some chicken soup. My wife got the sour fish soup:

I gather the flesh is not eaten. Given that in the area, people eat just about anything they can find, I guess that means it does not taste good at all. Thanks - I was feeling a bit better at this point, but all that activity caught up with me a bit later and I found my breaking point... stay tuned!!! Theoretically, it should have taken a half hour to walk to the waterfall from teh village, but goign there and back (and spending maybe 10 minutes at the waterfall itself) took like 2.5 hours because it was so overgrown and slippery. Some of the sections had the path being only about 8" wide, and you're between the steep cliff of the hillside on one side and a 40 foot (minimum) dropoff on the other. It was a bit harrowing in spots, especially when I'd get a minor cramp once in a while.

Breakfast at the hotel the next morning. One thing about a hotel that caters to domestic travelers is that the breakfast buffet is almost entirely Indonesian. They also highlighted a dish that's very common in the region - one that I had seen roadside signs for all over the place during our transit: Similar to the Javanese nasi campur or slightly similar to the Malay nasi lemak, it's rice with a bunch of stuff around it. Where the Javanese version would have 1 or two different types of beef floss, the Manado version uses a fish floss. Here's the setup: The pot full of turmeric rice is cut off on the right.... My plate, going clock wise from the top: krupuk udang (shrimp chips), some kind of bean cake cut into strips (the Javanese version is more sweet), mung bean noodles, fish floss, shredded fish, sambal terasi (chillies with fermented shrimp paste). Kue - pandan chiffon cake mee goreng Some kind of vegetable fritter soup setup - this isn't like the Javanese soto ayam, it's much more simple. Chicken broth, egg noodles (mee), shredded cabbage, fried shallots, fried tofu, some kind of fish floss. With some sambal and lime (of course) We then met up with our guide/driver. We had wanted to see a few of the waterfalls/jungly things in the highlands as well as the main market in Tomohon (a small, charming city in the highlands) which is very well known. He was great but I felt bad for him as he said that we were his first tour since COVID! Ever since then, the area doesn't see nearly as many tourists as it used to and is taking a long time to come back. And we found that most of the trails to get to the various waterfalls were completely overgrown and neglected. Most were impassable after a certain point but we did get to see some. Our first stop was the small village of Kali (which means river), as the river runs through it. It's REALLY small - like 1 street, with 1 general store and a few houses around. We parked in one family's driveway (for 20,000IDR = a little more than $1) and then started our walk. One thing they do in this village is manage clove and nutmeg trees. Nutmeg and mace drying Clove buds on the tree Harvesting cloves is different here than what we saw in rural Bali - in Bali, someone would climb the tree and then climb out the branches to pick the buds, but here they have these rickety looking bamboo ladders that they lean up against the outside branches which somehow seems less safe than the climbing method. bamboo ladder cloves drying Nutmeg on the tree. I didn't realize that nutmeg was a fruit. When harvesting, they peel off the skin and fleshy parts - the nutmeg is the seed inside and mace is a the stuff that surrounds the seed underneath the flesh of the fruit. Nutmeg closeup They also make palm wine in this village. A specific type of palm tree has a very sweet fruit which is pressed and then fermented to make the wine. It's also distilled to make a really strong palm spirit. Here, they use an even more rickety bamboo ladder to get up to where the bunches of fruit hang. It's basically a single bamboo pole with holes cut out - the climber puts his big toe in the holes to climb Closeup of the fruit Continuing on the overgrown trail.... this is one of the nicer sections, however the stones were slightly mossed over, damp and REALLY slippery. And who doesn't love muddy sections covered in slippery wet leaves? But we finally made it to the waterfall - it was definitely worth it! And back to the village to move on to Tomohon...

After breakfast was another transit day. Small boat to the dock on the mainland, then 1.5 hour car ride to the city of Manado. There isn't much touristy stuff in Manado, so the original plan was to use it as a base to explore the Minahasa highlands around the city and maybe hit a market or two. In addition to the standard fruit I usually look for, I was also looking to bring home some kencur - Indonesian sand ginger. It's used in lots of Indonesian dishes, but is impossible to find in the US unless you want dried which is a totally different thing. I had already applied for and received permission to bring it in from the USDA, just as long as there is no dirt or pests attached to it. I had also wanted to find an Indonesian mortar/pestle - which looks more like a flat plate than the Thai style. When we arrived at the hotel, our room wasn't ready yet, so we hung out in the lobby a bit and then went to the hotel restaurant for lunch. Interestingly, I'd say at least 95% of the hotel occupants that I saw over our 4 days there were domestic Indonesian travelers, and most of the hotel staff spoke no English at all, which is pretty uncommon. Really glad I brushed up on my Bahasa!!! The hotel has the only Italian restaurant in the city but they also have some local Indonesian dishes. I took a photo of the menu of the local section: Ikan kuah asam - a fish soup with big chunks of some kind of white fish in a clear sour broth. The fish was dry (that's the style of cooking fish here - you'll see why later) but the soup had a nice sour flavor. Served with rice: Cakalang bakar dabu-dabu - grilled skipjack tuna with sambal dabu-dabu. Dabu-dabu (which means chopped) is local to this area, although it has spread all over Indonesia. As far as I know, it is unique among Indonesian sambals as it is a raw sambal - most sambal are ground and then fried to bring out the flavor. This one is a raw combination of green and red tomato (both underripe and sour), shallots and chillies. Hot oil is then poured over the sambal to help bring out some flavor, but it is still essentially raw. And holy crap is it hot!!! This was one of the hottest things I've had in my life. The tuna was also very dry, but lubricated by the sambal as well as my excessive salivation and mucus coming out of my nose. It turns out that the local Minahasa people pride themselves on the fact that the locally grown chillies are hotter than any other in Indonesia! They say that because theirs is the spiciest, their food is the best. After checking into our room and unpacking a bit, we took a quick walk around because I needed to find an ATM and I wanted to get more water for the room. Quite a few people who were just hanging around on the street were eyeing us like pieces of meat - I don't know if they're just not used to seeing white people or anything else but it did make us a bit uneasy - which could have entirely been in our heads. But we decided to have dinner in the hotel as I still wasn't feeling 100% and all of the places I was looking at going to were a taxi ride to a different neighborhood and we had to wake up early to meet our driver for our highland trip. But first, a few street shots: Fresh squeezed lime juice Ayam woku (chicken in woku curry) - this was awesome. Similar to the ikan woku (fish woku) that we had on the island, woku curry is a specialty of the Minahasa people of the region. It has a pretty standard bumbu (spice paste) of galangal, shallots, chillies, etc. but also uses a bunch of leafy herbs which are finely sliced - turmeric leaves, green onion, pandan leaves and basil. Served with: Rice and krupuk udang (shrimp chips) Mee goreng - this version used a lot of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) and they must have had a really hot wok because there was a great char aroma to it.

I got them in the SE Asian grocery on Mulberry St. You could also probably find them at teh Bangkok Center Grocery around the corner on Mosco St. Also there's a couple of Indonesian grocers in Elmhurst that carry a wide variety of krupuk (crispy chip-like things), including shrimp ones.

oh yeah. It's really rural. In fact, many of the hotel employees don't even live there - they live in housing on the property and go home to the mainland once a week. The hotel has an internship program for the few teenagers on the island. One of them was one of the servers in the restaurant - she was a sweet girl and was always with a smile, even if her job was probably incredibly boring - constantly filling and refilling water glasses for all of 6 people. It's a good thing those water glasses were so small otherwise she's be out of work in a hurry!

I didn't bother getting up for breakfast that morning. I insisted taht my wife leave for her final 2 certifying dives. She reported back later that they had a breakfast buffet as there were now 10 people staying at the hotel at this point. To tell the truth, I was laying there for a couple hours, achy and having weird fever dreams and I was just too exhausted to reach over and get the bottle of Tylenol and water that were literally 3 feet away on the bedside table. Way too much effort required. I finally mustered the energy to take some around 10AM and started to feel a bit more human an hour later. I think my wife went for lunch around 1 after she got back but I was not up for it. When she came back, she said the restaurant staff were really worried about me and they sent me some ginger tea. They also wanted to send lunch to me (so I didn't ahve to leave the room) but I really wasn't hungry at that point. I think I turned a corner that afternoon (what's in that ginger tea?!?) and was actually able to go to dinner that night, which was also our last night there. Tapenade Gado gado is an Indonesian salad of sorts but my stomach definitely wasn't up for that. Same for any kind of cream soup. However, I did get the Ikan bakar rica = spicy grilled fish. People in North Sulawesi feel they have the tastiest food in all of Indonesia because theirs is the spiciest. A common dish there is Rica-Rica - which is usually something grilled topped with a sambal of insanely hot chillies. This one wasn't so bad - it was barely spicy - enough to make my mouth happy and not upset my stomach. The fish was local yellowfin tuna, cooked in traditional style, which means completely and thoroughly cooked. With white rice, shrimp chips and stir fried bok choy. The next morning, I managed a little bit more: mee goreng, ikan goreng (fried fish - I think this was more of the same tuna) and some kind of chicken sausage and onion stew. Pineapple and dragon fruit. This concludes the surf portion of this trip!! Next, on to the turf!!! Spoiler alert - I started feeling better, and then my wife caught it from me!

What tourist areas? The island and village are REALLY small. Other than the 2 hotels and small village, there is literally nothing else. There is no central power station on the island. The hotel is mostly self sufficient with solar power and diesel generators and I gather the village is the same way. Many dive hotels in the area don't have hot water or power at night. Many don't have ensuite bathrooms but it's more like camping with a common bathroom that you need a flashlight for at night. I don't think there are any shops, other than maybe one or two selling household goods for the people that live there. I think less than 50 people live in that village. As far as I'm aware, there are no restaurants. I think there's a small school as there are a handful of children who live there. I would never even have known about it but one of the hotel workers I was talking to said that she lived there and if we were REALLY interested, she could take us there to show us around but she made it seem like there wasn't really anything to see. If I were feeling better we may have been inclined to take her up on her offer one afternoon just to check it out (and then we'd be the tourist attraction! Many of the younger residents have never seen white people before in real life so I'm sure we'd be fascinating for them and they'd all want to have their picture taken with us).

At this point in the story there are 6 guests at the hotel, total. The next day would bring 4 more, bringing the total to 10. I think at peak season there's maybe 40 or so? As I explained above, the island we were on is really small. I think there are only 2 hotels and a small village on teh island. We could see the village from the first dive site - it was really small. The area around the peninsula of North Sulawesi has tons of really small islands, many of which are barely inhabited. Lots of small dive hotels in this area at a range of price points, many of which are the only things on the island. There is a lot of great diving in this area - it's well known for it, hence all the dive hotels. So no, there is really nowhere else on the island to go for meals other than the hotel restaurant, hence why most hotels include the meals in the price of the room (alcohol is extra) since you really don't have a choice but to eat there. Theoretically, we could have taken a 10 minute walk from the edge of the hotel property down an unlit path to get to the village to eat there but I'm sure the locals wouldn't be too pleased as they never see the tourists and pretty much all of the villagers work for the hotels. So I'd feel really awkward imposing on them like that on their private time. But I'd imagine any hotel would want to see their guests happy - happy guests = good reviews = more guests. So they make European food thinking it would make their guests happy, but if they find that they want more local food, why not make it for them? I think the chef was actually very happy we enjoyed the local food so much. I spoke with him on our last night there after dinner and he was surprised at my knowledge of Indonesian food in general, and my desire to learn more about the local food of that specific area.